


Here is My Home

by wbss21



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Book Shop AU, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Human AU, Hurt/Comfort, Loki Needs a Hug, Odin's A+ Parenting, Thor Is a Good Bro, Work Place
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 10:36:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6902407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wbss21/pseuds/wbss21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He goes about making himself a sandwich, the clinking of dishes and silverware against jars seeming especially loud in the small space, and he thinks of Thor's home, with Jane and their two children. How noisy it had been. But pleasantly so. A noise which had spoken of life and love and warmth.  Sequel to my one-shot "Antique Christmas".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The apartment is, as always, quiet when he returns.

Empty and dark.

Loki goes about his usual routine, switching on the light by the front door, dropping his keys onto the dresser below the switch.

He removes his scarf and then his coat, hanging them up, making sure to lock the door behind him before he heads towards the kitchen, really only separated from the living room by a small island.

He goes about making himself a sandwich, the clinking of dishes and silverware against jars seeming especially loud in the small space, and he thinks of Thor's home, with Jane and their two children. How noisy it had been. But pleasantly so. A noise which had spoken of life and love and warmth.

Loki has lived alone for so long now, before last night, he had scarcely been able to recall what that sounded like.

Christmas Eve, and Thor had come to see him.

It had been the absolute last thing Loki had ever expected. When he'd looked up from his books and seen his brother standing there...

It had, all at once, been like the most wondrous relief, and most suffocating fear which had taken hold of him, and for an instant, he had sat frozen, shocked, mind blinking out and words lost to him entirely.

He supposes, until that moment, until Thor had opened his mouth and said hello to him, Loki hadn't even realized how much he missed him.

Hadn't realized how alone he'd been.

It had always gotten that way, around the holidays. One couldn't help being reminded, he supposed, if they really had no one, of that fact when all around you would see families together, shopping and laughing and enjoying each others company. Being in retail, he saw it especially during this time of year.

His own, fleeting memories would pass over his thoughts then. Of him and Thor, Mum and Dad, all together, how much joy and laughter and happiness there had been between them. Especially when he and Thor had been really young, and it was just the two of them, best and only friends.

Years had passed, and of course Thor, radiant Thor, had made friends of everyone he met, and Loki, well...

That hadn't ever been something he was very good at.

When Thor had met Jane, only a year before... before he'd found out, about where he'd come from, about the adoption, Loki remembers feeling such seething, burning jealousy towards her. Remembers it most of all for the way she had, somehow, been able to tame Thor's wild and reckless abandon. The way she'd soothed his brother into a calmness and thoughtfulness which Loki, for all his years of ceaseless trying, had never been able to do. 

He had wanted to hate her for it, he remembers. At first he had. Had wanted to hate her for meaning more to Thor than he did. That's how it had felt. Because Thor listened to her, where he never listened to Loki. 

But then, eventually, he had only been able to come to respect her.

She'd been smart. Immensely smart. Loki hadn't ever met another person, outside his mother and father, who had ever been able to keep up with his at times painfully rapid and noisy thoughts, who had been able to follow what he meant with such ease. Jane though... Jane had been able to match him, at times even surpass him when it came to certain things. She'd been sweet, but tough, never falling for any of his bullshit, calling him on it in a way, again, only Mum and Dad ever had. It had been an act, then, his callousness towards her. One which, eventually, he'd been unable to maintain, and she had won him over, easily as she'd won Thor over, he supposes.

When he'd seen in the papers that she and his brother had gotten married, and then Mum had told him again, Loki had only been able to feel happy for Thor, all the while ignoring the pang of regret he felt at not being able to be there for it.

Loki shakes his head, replacing the mayo and turkey in the fridge before closing the door, picking up his plate and drink and heading back into the living room.

Stupid, he thinks, to have spent so many years apart. But his pride had always been his one, great weakness. Thor's too. Only Thor had always been the braver of them also, and so Loki supposes he shouldn't have been so surprised, to see his brother reach out first.

Loki hadn't known what to expect when Thor had invited him to come spend Christmas with him and his family at their home. Hadn't been sure how Jane and his nephews would respond to his being there, hadn't been sure how he would respond to seeing them, Thor's two son's for the first time.

He'd felt so afraid. Terrified that they would reject him, and that fear had made him feel so angry towards himself. He'd promised himself a long time ago he wouldn't care what anyone thought of him ever again, but that was a promise which he'd always found impossible to keep.

And yet it had been exactly the opposite. Jane and the boys had welcomed him with open arms, accepted him into their home, and acted as though they were genuinely happy to have him there with them, on Christmas day. 

Loki had sat with Thor and Jane on the couch, watching as Modi and Magni opened their presents under the tree, and had felt stunned beyond words when the two children had, instead of Thor or their mother, wanted to share their new toys and play with him.

Halfway through the morning, Loki had excused himself to go to the bathroom, and to his great embarrassment, had started sobbing his eyes out, trying to muffle the sound of it against his palm. He hadn't even understood what was wrong with him, why he was reacting the way he was, why he couldn't stop weeping.

Eventually, Thor had come looking for him, asking if he was alright, and Loki had tried vainly to cover the evidence of his tears by splashing cold water on his face. He's certain both Jane and his brother had known he was crying, but neither of them, to his gratitude, had said a word.

Later, they'd tried convincing him to come with them over to Mum and Dad's for dinner, but Loki had declined.

He couldn't. Not now. Not yet. Not after everything else.

Thor had offered to drive him back to his apartment then, and again, Loki had declined, a sudden, deep embarrassment coming over him at the thought of his brother seeing his ratty, tiny flat after having spent the whole night and most of the next day in his and Jane's beautiful, sprawling house. 

Thor had insisted then in at least driving him to the bus stop and waiting with him until it came, and Loki hadn't been able to say no to that.

“I'll call you tomorrow.” Thor had told him when the bus had come, and he and Loki had hugged one another, Loki promising to pick up when he did.

He sits down on his couch now, placing his plate and glass of water down on the coffee table.

He thinks about turning on the television, just to have some noise fill the space, but decides against it. He isn't even sure why he ever bought the TV. He never watches it.

He should probably just turn in soon, really. 

He'd given Darcy and Leah off until after New Years, but he'd planned on keeping the shop open by just himself. He couldn't really afford to have it closed too many days. It barely pulled enough cash in for him to stay afloat. He hadn't told Thor that. The last thing he or his brother needed was more drama, and Loki knows Thor, he would have offered to help, and Loki would have had to tell him no, and then there would have been an argument.

Loki tries not to think about how he also doesn't like to close the shop because when he does, he's really got nothing to do otherwise. No where to really be, no one to see.

Darcy had invited him to come and spend the holiday's with her and her family over in the States, had even offered to pay, but Loki couldn't accept something so generous. Darcy was only working for him to supplement her income as she made her way through University, and he wasn't about to take the money she worked for.

Leah had even invited him to spend time with her and her Mom, but again, Loki had felt awkward and hadn't wanted to impose. Both girls were friends, as much so as Loki had ever been able to call anyone friend. But he just didn't do well with the whole socializing thing. 

People always found him... strange, and he didn't really know how to change that.

He isn't even really hungry, he realizes, as he takes a few bites of his sandwich. 

He keeps thinking about Thor, about his kids, about Mum and Dad and all of them together right now, eating dinner and celebrating.

He thinks maybe he shouldn't have turned Thor and Jane down after all. But he doesn't know how that situation would have gone either. Not with Odin there. It was probably better this way, really.

He sits there a little while longer, nibbling on his food, his mind going back and forth, until he can't eat anymore.

He stands, walking back to the kitchen and wrapping the rest of his sandwich up, putting it in the fridge and putting the plate in the sink.

He makes sure to kill the lights before heading into his bedroom, suddenly feeling too tired to do anything more than unbutton his shirt and throw it on the floor before flopping down onto his mattress.

Tired as he is, he still isn't able to fall asleep for nearly an hour afterward.

When he finally does, as always, it is filled with unhappy dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

Loki curses as he drops his incessantly buzzing phone trying to fish it out of his coat pocket while balancing his coffee and keys in the other hand.

It lands with a soft thunk in the snow, still buzzing, the screen lit up, not with Thor's name, like Loki had half expected, but Darcy's.

Loki huffs, his breath misting in the air as he bends down and scoops the phone out of the snow, the wet coldness of it stinging his bare fingers.

It takes several attempts of pressing the answer button before the thing actually does, Loki growling under his breathe in frustration. He hates technology. He hates all these smart device things most of all. He still doesn't know why he let Darcy talk him into replacing his cell phone with one all those months ago. He'd been perfectly happy with his little flip phone. The thing had actually had buttons, for one. That he could actually press. And this fucking Starkphone, or whatever the hell it was called, also cost him literally twice as much a month as his old one. And why? He still couldn't figure it out. Darcy had spouted off all these incomprehensible things, like data coverage plans, roll over whatever the fuck, internet, blah, blah... Who the hell needed the internet on their phone? It was a phone, for Christ's sake. It was supposed to make phone calls and that was it. At least as far as Loki was concerned.

He couldn't even begin to make sense of all the other weird little icons on the screen. Darcy had been trying to show him how to use a thing she called "aps", but Loki had no clue what she was ever talking about, and frankly, he didn't want to know.

The world was so stupid sometimes.

He finally gets the phone to his ear, sticking the key to his store into the front lock, eager to get out of the cold. It was miserable out, well below freezing, and Loki was already starting to shake uncontrollably from the few blocks he'd had to walk from the bus stop to here.

"What'd you do, drop your phone?" Darcy says before he can even say hello. "Took you long enough to pick up."

"Shut up." Loki tells her, at last getting the door open and stepping inside, an almost overwhelming relief washing over him with the warmth of the place as he shuts the door behind him and sags back against it.

Darcy laughs, clearly having a better time than he is.

"Good mood this morning I see. As usual." She goes on. "I didn't wake you did I?"

"No," Loki answers, needing to dig deep for the motivation to move from where he's standing. "I just got to the store. It's fucking freezing out."

Again Darcy laughs, and Loki can't help his own smile. It's good to hear her voice, actually.

"You're at the store though? Dude, come on, it's the day after Christmas. Isn't that a holiday over there still?"

"Boxing day." Loki tells her flatly.

"Yeah!" She exclaims. "You should be out having fun!"

"Yeah, well..." Loki shrugs, not quite sure how to respond to that. He supposes he should be out doing something less... work related. But he's really got nothing. "How about you?" He asks, putting his stuff down on the front counter, beginning to remove his coat and scarf. "How's the weather over in Chicago?"

"Fucking freezing." Darcy parrots him, and now it's Loki's turn to laugh.

"Of course." He says. "And how about the family? Did you have a good Christmas?"

"Yeah... sort of." She says. "My family is nuts though. I swear, a fight breaks out every five minutes over the stupidest shit."

Loki smirks, switching the phone to his other ear.

"Sounds about normal. I hope you at least got some good presents out of the deal."

"Yes! Oh my God, wait'll you see!" Darcy's voice raises an octave, screechy and tiny over the phone and Loki cringes, pulling it away from his ear for a moment. Darcy keeps talking, oblivious, listing off a number of techy sounding things which Loki had no idea about any of. He just keeps humming in response, knowing that's probably good enough for her. He just hopes she doesn't try to "convert" him like she did with the phone.

"What about you?" She breaks off from listing her haul to ask him suddenly.

"Hmm?" Loki asks, moving around the store, getting it ready for opening, lifting the shades, the front space filling with bright, cold light from the outside, turning the open sign around in the front door window.

"You get any presents, or..." her voice trails off, and she sounds abruptly embarrassed.

He knows why.

He's only known Darcy for a little less than a year, but she already knows he was, at least until yesterday, pretty much estranged from his family. Knows too that he doesn't really date, doesn't really have any friends outside of her and Leah...

Loki doesn't even know why he'd told her so much about himself, beyond just the fact that Darcy was one of those people who never stopped asking questions, and wouldn't stop until she got a satisfactory answer. So he'd told her, more or less, just to shut her up, he guesses. Though maybe that was a little unfair to her too. Darcy, for as obnoxious and pushy as she could be, was also a good and loyal girl, and he knew she would never tell anyone anything he didn't want her to. He could trust her, and, he had to admit to himself afterward, it had felt nice, telling someone the truth, for once. Just having someone to talk to, really.

"That's alright." He tells her gently. "You know me. I usually just stay home." He pauses, wondering suddenly if he should tell her about Thor coming to the shop, inviting him to his and Jane's home for the holiday. He's taken by an abruptly keen desire to tell somebody, an oddly excited flutter spreading in the pit of his stomach. And all at once he's telling her, the words seeming to pour out of him.

"My brother came by the other night. To the shop, I mean. He... he asked me to come spend Christmas with him and his family and I... said yes, for some reason."

He stops, rolling his eyes at himself. Why did he sound like such a stupid child? God...

"Oh my God!" Darcy shouts on the other end, the loudness of her voice against assaulting Loki's ears. "Are you serious!?"

"Ye..." Loki begins to answer, confused by her jubilant reaction.

"Oh my God!" She screams again, and Loki huffs, suddenly irritated. "That's amazing! He actually came to see you? And you spent Christmas with him!? That's so awesome Loki!"

"I'm glad it makes you so happy." Loki tells her, deadpan.

"Whatever dude." She dismisses his sarcasm in the way she always manages to. "I'm serious. That's amazing! You don't know how sad it was making me to think of you spending Christmas all by yourself in that tiny ass apartment of yours."

"Your concern is touching." Loki tells her, ignoring the way her pitying words causes a defensive anger to nearly choke his throat.

He didn't need anyone feeling sorry for him.

"Don't be that way man." She answers. "I just mean I'm happy you talked to your brother. From what you told me it sounds like you two used to be really close, and I just thought it was a shame you two weren't in touch anymore. That's always sad to me."

Loki is quiet for a long moment, not sure what to say.

He decides simply to change the subject, not liking where this whole conversation is suddenly headed.

"When are you coming back do you think?" He asks, moving into the back room and taking a seat at the small table. The one he and Thor had drank Cokes at the other night.

"Miss me that much, huh?" Darcy teases, thankfully seeming to get the hint that Loki wasn't into discussing the deal with his brother anymore.

"Maybe for your ace cleaning skills." Loki teases back. "The shop is slowly being devoured by dust bunnies while you've been gone."

Again, Darcy laughs.

"Dude, you need to get a vacuum cleaner. I've told you."

"What, and have the thing break down after a couple months? I don't think so." Loki answers, leaning back in his seat and throwing an arm across his eyes.

"Not if you got a good one. Like a Dyson. Those things are fucking amazing."

"I can't afford a Dyson. They cost something like three hundred ponds." He tells her.

"But I don't wanna clean your dust bunnies!" Darcy protests, her voice whiny and petulant.

"That sounded wrong." Loki grins, chuckling at the "ew" Darcy makes at the other end. "Besides," he goes on. "what am I paying you for?"

"My charm." She tells him. "You know you suck at talking to people. On the rare occasion someone actually accidentally wonders into your shop, if it weren't for me being there, more than half of 'em would run screaming from the place."

"That's not true..." Loki begins to protest.

"Is so." She cuts him off. "You yell at anyone who doesn't know as much as you about all those dusty old books and the dead fuckers who wrote them. Me included."

"I don't yell." Loki insists. "I simply try to correct their ignorance."

"Right," Darcy says, sounding anything but convinced. "either way, if it weren't for me, you wouldn't have any sales. That's what you're paying me for."

"... Maybe." Loki concedes after a moment.

He did have to admit, Darcy was a hell of a lot better at talking to the customers than he was. He just didn't know how to do that sort of thing. He never had. Everyone always thought he was being purposefully rude or condescending, when that wasn't it at all. He just wanted people to understand why the books they were holding were special, and he got frustrated when they looked at him like he was crazy or stupid.

Finding Darcy had been one of the luckiest days of his life, he supposes. She'd wandered into the shop shortly after it had opened, and he'd been struggling terribly already, sales lagging, losing money like sand through his fingers. Already fearful that, after all the money he'd saved up and all the planning he'd put into opening the place, he was going to end up having to fold within less than a year.

He'd gotten to talking to her, pleased that she hadn't gotten sick of him after five minutes like most people and simply left, pleased also to discover she knew quite a bit about antique books and texts. More than the average person, certainly. And bad as Loki was at knowing how to talk to people, he'd never failed at being able to recognize when someone else was especially good at it. It was something he'd always admired and wished he had. Thor had had it since the time he was a child, and Loki had used to feel so jealous of the way he could just put people at ease and make them like him.

He doesn't know what had possessed him then, talking to Darcy that day, but he'd just sort of blurted out, asking if she would be interested in a job.

She'd looked at him with a sort of shocked expression on her face, he remembers. Remembers too thinking that he'd somehow fucked up, again, and started tripping all over himself trying to explain, and then apologize, sure that she was going to flip him off or something and storm out of the shop, never to be seen or heard from again.

Only then she'd asked him if he was kidding, because she'd been looking all over the place for a job, but no where she looked had any positions available, and she was desperately in need of some cash to help sustain her living situation while she was at University.

Loki had told her he was serious, but had warned her that he wouldn't be able to pay her a lot. She hadn't seemed to care, as long as it was something.

He'd ended up giving her a job that day, and within a week of her coming on, he'd seen his sales begin to turn around dramatically. He still wasn't really competing with any of the major book chains, or online places like amazon. But it was enough to support himself and keep the store open.

His only other employee was Leah, and the story with her was different.

He had met Leah while he'd been at University. She'd been older than him, like everyone there. Seventeen to his thirteen at the time. They'd been taking some of the same literary courses, and also had had advanced calculus together. After a while, they'd ended up becoming study partners, and then friends, in a way.

Leah was a fascinating girl, well, woman, Loki supposes he should call her now. A lot of people would accuse her of being mean and having little sense of humor, but Loki had liked her the moment he met her. She was smart, and beautiful, and, Loki wouldn't delude himself over the fact that part of the reason he liked her was because she'd always been, beneath her sometimes abrasive and standoffish attitude, kind to him.

Loki had never felt more out of place or alone when he'd entered Cambridge. He'd been the youngest person at the school. Subsequently, nobody had been interested in talking to him, or being friends with him. Not that Loki could blame them. They were all young adults, and when he'd first gotten there, he was still a prepubescent boy. It didn't take a genius level intellect either to realize the other students felt some amount of resentment towards him. Most of them had worked their assess off to get into such a fine university. So had he, but they probably looked at him and saw an upstart wunderkind, someone who'd just breezed passed the exams and gotten in without any, real effort.

That, and Loki had just been brutally awkward. He still was, in a lot of ways. But back then, it had been really bad. He'd been almost paralyzingly shy and withdrawn. He remembers never having the courage to look anyone in the eye, remembers people always telling him, their voices laced with impatience and annoyance, to "speak up".

It had been hard. And then he'd met Leah, and she'd actually talked to him, actually been friendly, in her own, certain way. Had actually treated him like an equal. Not just some annoying brat. She'd been happy to let him help her on her course work whenever she'd been having difficulty with it, showing none of the jealousy or contempt that so many of the other students did.

She'd been, in a way, like his guardian angel too. Nobody had fucked with him when Leah was around. When she wasn't, the other students would pick on him, and there really hadn't been anything Loki could do about it. He talked back, sometimes, because when Loki's temper got going, it really got going. But that always just wound up getting him in more trouble. The bullying would escalate from them sticking "kick me" signs on his back, slapping him in the back of the head, calling him stupid, immature names, to actually hitting him, and hitting him hard. He'd wound up with more bloody noses and black eyes than he could remember.

But when he was with Leah, people always tended to back off. She'd been an intimidating presence. Had always had an air of deep maturity and sophistication about her, had seemed like a grown woman, even as a teenager. More than a few times, she'd smacked people around for him, and Loki had always only been able to stand back in awe, feeling himself intimidated and slightly afraid. She'd never have beat him up, he knew, but still. She'd been taller than him then, and a lot stronger.

She pretended a lot of the time that she couldn't stand him, even still. Told him often how much she hated him. But that was just how Leah was. That was her sense of humor. Most people didn't get it. Loki did. Maybe that was why she actually liked him. Why she stuck around and continued to be his friend.

They'd kept in touch after University, and when Loki had finally scrounged enough of his savings together to open the store, he'd asked her if she wanted to work for him. She'd said yes, and so she'd ended up being his first and, for a while, only employee. Always being a whiz at math, Loki had tasked her with basically keeping the books and budget, which had given him a lot more free time to actually manage the store and its merchandise. Antique books were a specialty item, to say the least, and it took a lot of time and consideration just to determine what the stock should be. He couldn't blow his budget on too many items which just weren't going to sell, no matter how much he may have, personally, loved them. But he'd also wanted and needed a wide and eclectic variety. The greater your selection, he knew, the more people you could appeal to.

That had left him with being the main sales person too though, which, again, not so good with people, and Leah really wasn't much better.

Darcy had been a Godsend, in a way.

He hears her giggling on the other end now.

"I'll take that maybe." She says. "Anyway, I'll be back on the 30th. If you need me to come in before the New Year, that's fine."

Loki shakes his head.

"No, that's alright." He tells her. "Things have been quiet after the Christmas rush, so I think I can pretty much hold down the fort for a while."

"... Alright." Darcy says after a moment, sounding hesitant. "But I might come by anyway. Just to annoy you."

"Of course." Loki says back. He waits a moment, biting his lip. "I look forward to seeing you again." He finally breathes, pushing past his own awkwardness.

"I look forward to seeing you too squirt." Darcy laughs, easy and outgoing. Loki feels envious of her sometimes, wishing he could be the same way. "Don't work too hard in the meantime." She goes on. "Remember, it's your store, so you can close down whenever you want and, I don't know, go for a walk. Go bird watching. Something."

"Ha ha. I'll remember that." Loki says back.

"Seriously." She says. "And stay in touch with your brother. That's good for you Loki."

"Yes Mother." Loki answers, rolling his eyes.

"Alright. I'll call you again tomorrow maybe." Darcy says. "Bye."

"Bye." He says, and a moment later he hears the line go silent.

He pulls the phone away from his ear, staring at the screen for a moment, sighing deeply to himself.

He really is looking forward to seeing her again. Annoying as she is. Leah too.

The shop feels empty without them. Lonely.

He doubts anyone's going to come in today. Maybe he'll actually take Darcy's advice and close it down, go somewhere, do something different.

Thor's supposed to call. The big lunk's probably still in bed. It's just barely eight in the morning.

Maybe I'll call him, Loki thinks. Maybe they can go somewhere together.

He thinks suddenly of the ice skating rink near where he is, and he can't help the smile which tugs at his lips at the thought. That could be fun. God, he and Thor hadn't been ice skating together in so long, but they'd always used to do it when they'd been kids. They'd been good at it. Both of them. He remembers how people had used to stop and just watch them.

Hell, he wouldn't even mind if Thor wanted to bring Jane and the kids along. It could be fun. If Thor hadn't shown Modi and Magni how to skate yet, maybe he could.

He only has to think about it a few moments longer before his mind's made up and he stands, heading back out into the front of the store, grabbing up his coat and scarf.

By the time he's pulling the door behind him and locking it back up, he's already got Thor's number dialed, the phone pressed back to his ear, waiting for his brother to answer on the other end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Thank you to everyone for your wonderful reception so far with this story! I hope you continue to enjoy! And please leave a review if you have a chance!


	3. Chapter 3

"I'd love to!" Thor says, and Loki feels an almost crushing relief. He hadn't even realized until Thor said yes that he'd been dreading his saying no. Dreading the embarrassment he would feel if his brother had told him he couldn't. "I just have to wrap a few things up here at Mum and Dad's. Is half an hour okay?"

"Yeah, that... that's great." Loki answers, smiling. "That's perfect. Do... do Jane and the kids want to come along, or...?"

"Well, they were actually going to go out and spend the morning with Mum and Dad. I was too, but..."

"Oh..." Loki says. "that's... okay. I mean..."

"I could ask them all to come along," Thor starts. "but I didn't know if you... if that would be alright."

Loki bites his lip, hesitating.

It would be nice... God, it would be nice to see Mum again. He'd met with her only a handful of times since they'd all fallen out those years ago, and the tension during those meetings had always been palpable and uncomfortable. Mum begging him to forgive all of them, to come back, Loki holding stubbornly onto his pride and dignity, refusing her each time.

But the thought of seeing Odin again has Loki's stomach churning in sudden, nauseating anxiety. They hadn't spoken at all in those five years, and the last time they had had been ugly and awful. Just thinking about that final fight between them left Loki, at times, literally trembling with fear and anger in equal measure.

He'd never seen his father so enraged.

Loki had been distraught after he'd found the papers, locked away in Odin's desk in his study. He remembers the whole thing like it had been yesterday. He'd been looking for money, he remembers. Christ, things had already started going bad between him and Odin, even before then. Well before then. Nothing had ever been good enough for his father. Not where Loki was concerned. That was how it had felt, anyway. Odin was always telling him to do better, to act different, to be different. After Loki had graduated Cambridge at fourteen, he'd been too young still to go out into the world and start a life of his own, like most graduating students, and so he'd ended up still living at home with his parents for several years. Thor had been long gone by then, living on his own for a long time, and then he and Jane had moved in together.

All of that had led to Odin's attention shifting from Thor to almost entirely onto him. But where Thor had been able to do no wrong in Dad's eyes, always making him proud, always boasting about his incredible first son to anyone who would listen, Loki had been the opposite. Always a disappointment, always an embarrassment. From Loki's chosen field of study at University, Odin had wanted him to go into law or medicine, like Thor, or barring that, journalism, to at least be practical, but Loki had wanted to study the arts, fiction writing and painting and music, and he had.

"You're never going to be able to support yourself with a major like that." He had used to say, and Loki had told him again and again that he didn't care. That it was what he loved, it was his passion, and Odin would scoff, rolling his eyes. Loki still doesn't know if his father ever understood how much it hurt him, when he did that.

"You're wrong boy, if you think I'm going to keep bailing you out every time you run into money troubles." Odin would then argue, and still, Loki would tell him he didn't care, and that he shouldn't worry, because as soon as he was old enough, he was going to be out of his life forever anyway.

Near the end, the both of them had been fighting almost every day, the situation at home becoming insupportable. Mum would try to intervene, to sooth things between them, but there had only been so much she could do. They'd been at each others throats, and it had grown to the point that Loki hadn't had any desire to see or talk to his father at all. That was why he'd been snooping around where he wasn't supposed to be, looking for money, too afraid, and too proud, to ask Odin or even Mum directly for cash.

He'd found the papers, and his already precarious existence has come undone at the seams.

Loki remembers it feeling like he couldn't breathe, as every fear and suspicion and insecurity he'd ever had was suddenly confirmed. It had been like a curtain lifting, a harsh, blinding light revealed beneath. He wasn't Mum and Dad's son. Not really. Just some unwanted, abandoned bastard, found half dead in the midst of winter, out on the street. The son of a notorious, twisted criminal named Laufey, a murderer and drug lord who'd somehow always managed to slip through the hands of the police. Nobody knew who his mother was. Speculation that she'd either been one of Laufey's many mistresses, or just some street hooker who'd given birth to him in some back alley and then left him for dead.

Loki had understood then with brutal clarity why it was Odin had never, really loved him. Not like he did Thor. Understood that Mum's love, while he still hadn't been able to bring himself to doubt it, had been born from pity and sympathy, not pride, not a mother's pure, unquestioning love for her child.

He'd confronted them about it not long afterward, confused and frightened and reeling with hurt. He didn't understand how they could be so cruel, how they could lie to him like that for his entire life. He remembered being small, his differences already glaringly obvious, the way he just simply didn't fit in, and asking them both why that was, asking them if he was really their son, when all the other children always told him he wasn't. They'd told him of course he was, told him it was a silly question, reassured him again and again he belonged to them, was as much a part of their family as Thor. They'd lied. Right to his face. And Loki, pathetic, idiot child that he was, had believed them. Every time.

Mum had been crying, he remembers, trying to explain and not being able, and Dad... Dad had lost his temper, just like Loki, had started accusing him of ingratitude, calling him a selfish, petulant child. Loki had only gotten angrier. He remembers his eyes burning and blinding with tears, the heat of them rolling down his face, twisted in rage, even as he'd felt his world crumbling around him, an empty hole sitting in the middle of his chest.

And then Thor had walked in, had told Loki to calm down, had told him he was overreacting, and Loki...

That had been like the worst betrayal of all. Because if Thor, Thor, his best and only friend, couldn't understand, then who would?

And that had been it.

Loki had left. He packed nothing but a backpack full of clothes and some books, and he'd gone.

Those first few years on his own had been hard. Loki had never been on his own like that before, had never had to support himself like that. He'd grown up in luxury, Mum and Dad both wealthy, and he'd reaped the benefits of that. He hadn't been ready, not even close, for the harsh realities of fending for himself.

He hadn't told Thor, still too humiliated to admit it, but for the first couple years, he'd worked as a janitor, cleaning small offices and homes. Cleaning the shit out of people's toilets. Dad had been right, of course. Nobody had been interested in his classics degree. Nobody had wanted to hire him. He'd been living out of dirt cheap motel rooms, the only places he could afford then. He'd even... God, he'd even had to spend a few weeks at a homeless shelter, at the very beginning.

There'd been a lot of nights with him crying himself to sleep. A lot of nights where he'd almost given in, thinking seriously about crawling back home and begging for Dad's forgiveness. He'd been ready to do it the night he'd gotten jumped by a group of teenagers. They'd beaten him up and stolen all his clothes, including his shoes, leaving him a bloody, sobbing, sniveling mess on the street. That had almost done it. He'd almost given up then.

He still isn't sure why he hadn't.

Eventually, things had gotten a little better, after he'd landed a job editing a small, local paper, and with the money he'd managed to save from that, along with from his other, horrible jobs, he'd been able to open his book shop, with, of course, a loan from a bank. He was in so much debt still, he was practically drowning in it.

That was something Thor didn't need to know either.

"Maybe it should just be you for now." Loki eventually answers. He doesn't think he can handle seeing Odin. Not yet. He hopes Thor isn't mad.

"Okay." Thor tells him, and again, Loki sags with relief. "I'll just go tell everyone I'm meeting you, and see you in thirty?"

"Okay." Loki says.

"Did you want to talk to Mum for a minute?" Thor asks suddenly. "She says she wants to say hi."

Loki hesitates a moment, his fingers reflexively gripping harder over his phone.

"... Alright." He concedes finally. He knows he shouldn't neglect her. It isn't right.

There's a few, noisy seconds of shuffling on the other end, and then he hears Mum's sweet voice over the line.

"Hi sweetheart." She greets warmly.

"Hi Mum." He answers back.

"Thor told me about yesterday. That you spent Christmas with him and Jane and the boys."

"... Yeah."

"Oh, darling, I'm so happy." She says, and Loki can hear her struggling not to cry.

He looks down, a feeling of awful shame heating his face.

"You don't know how happy it makes me."

Loki fidgets, pushing a hand through his hair.

"... He came by the store the night before last." He finally answers, voice quiet. "He invited me over, ya know."

"He told me." Mum answers. "Oh Loki, I'm so glad. I wish you'd have come over last night for dinner."

Loki isn't sure what to say to that. He doesn't want to hurt Mum's feelings, but he doesn't particularly want to lie to her either.

"I know." He says. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright honey." She reassures. "We'll see each other, soon I hope."

"Yeah." Loki trails off, uncomfortable and guilty feeling.

"Have you been taking care of yourself?" She goes on. "You've been eating?"

"Yes. Please Mum, don't worry." He tells her.

"Thor said you looked thin." She says, sounding worried, and Loki rolls his eyes.

"I always look thin." He tells her. "That's just the way I'm built Mum. You know that."

"I also know you tend to neglect yourself. You get so caught up in things you forget basic functions necessary to staying alive sweetheart." She half laughs, but Loki can hear the genuine concern in her voice still.

She wasn't wrong.

He had always had that problem. He would get so caught up in his thoughts or in whatever he was doing, reading, writing, studying, he would often forget to eat, or sleep, or even to go to the bathroom.

He sighs.

"Well, now Thor's coming around, you can depend on him to nag me." He tells her lightly, hoping to ease her worry. "He's almost as bad as you are."

"That's true." She says. "I'll remind him to stay on you about it. How's the shop?"

She and Loki talk a few minutes longer as he tells her about the business. Typically, she asks if he's been seeing anyone, and typically he tells her no. She tells him Odin is doing fine, even though he hadn't asked.

Eventually, she puts Thor back on, and his brother tells him he's going to be leaving for the rink in a few minutes, double checking on the location.

Loki is just reaching the rink himself by the time they get off.

This early in the morning, there aren't that many people around, thankfully. He goes up to the counter and rents skates for both he and Thor.

After that, it's just a matter of waiting.

/

His brother is half an hour late.

Loki had been on the verge of calling the whole thing off, his temper mounting as the minutes ticked by, an awful feeling of humiliation creeping up close on its heels.

By the time he spots Thor, coming up the sidewalk, walking hurriedly, Loki is shaking, both from anger and the cold air.

He stands as Thor reaches the gate, his hands clenched in fists inside his pockets. Before he can say anything, Thor is apologizing profusely, already giving an explanation.

"I am so sorry, Loki." He says, his hands lifting. "We had some problems with the kids. They wanted to know where I was going, and I told them I was coming to meet you, and then they wanted to come along, but we'd already made plans for them to go with Mum and Dad, and I know you said it should just be me to come along, so I ended up having to explain to them why they couldn't come with me, and it took a lot longer than I thought it would. Loki, I'm really sorry, God, I hope you haven't been sitting here this whole time."

Loki blinks, taken aback by the sudden splurge of information.

"... Okay." He finally says after a moment, his voice flat.

Thor heaves a sigh, his great shoulders sagging in plain relief.

"You aren't angry?" He asks, and just like that, just like always with Thor, it seems, Loki suddenly feels bad for ever being angry in the first place.

He shakes his head wordlessly, and an instant later, Thor is coming in through the gate, striding towards him, and suddenly Loki finds himself in a bone crushing hug, Thor practically lifting him off the ground as he holds him against his chest.

"Thor..." Loki gasps out, his own hands finding his brothers shoulders, shoving uselessly at them. His ribs feel like they're being ground into dust. "Thor, I can't breathe..."

That seems to snap Thor out of his overwhelming display of affection, and he places Loki back on the ground, his powerful arms mercifully loosening. He looks at once sheepish.

"I'm sorry." He says. He looks at Loki carefully, a deep frown pulling at the corners of his lips then. "Brother, you're shivering."

Before Loki can respond, Thor is reaching out, grabbing hold of one of his hands. The warmth of his brother's hand against his own, cold skin is shocking, and Loki nearly gasps at the contact.

"Christ, Loki, you're freezing. How long have you been sitting out here?"

Almost an hour, Loki thinks.

"Loki, why didn't you go inside?" Thor presses, covering his hand with both of his, trying to rub warmth into them.

Oh... that was right. There was a small standalone structure which was a part of the rink, where you could get changed and just use generally to warm up.

Loki doesn't know why he hadn't even thought to go in.

He just stares back at Thor, not able to come up with an answer.

"Oh, Loki." Thor says, and as abruptly as his anger went, Loki feels it return.

"What?" He snaps, pulling his hand out of Thor's. "I'm fine. Don't talk to me like that Thor."

Thor's mouth opens, like he's about to respond, and then an expression washes over his face, one that looks only more like pity, and Loki turns away, disgusted. More at himself than anything.

"I'm fine." He repeats weakly, and he hears Thor breathe in.

"... Okay." His brother says after a moment, sounding defeated. "Can we... can we go inside for a little bit? It's cold out here and I'd... I'd like to warm up some before we go out on the ice."

That's Thor, Loki thinks miserably. That's Thor trying to be kind. Pretending like he's the one who's cold, because he knows how much his younger brother hates to be pitied, but he can't help trying to protect him anyway.

"Yeah... alright." Loki agrees anyway, because he knows it will at least make Thor feel better.

Once inside though, he has to admit, at least privately, that the heating gives him an almost instant relief. He hadn't even realized how cold he actually was until he stepped inside the building and had been blasted in the face with warm air.

He finds a chair and slumps down into it, keeping his eyes fixed on the carpeted flooring, not looking up at Thor as his brother takes the seat beside him.

They sit in awkward silence for long minutes then, Loki rubbing his hands together, wrapping his arms round himself, trying to warm up. He forces himself not to say anything.

"Loki..." Thor finally starts, and that sets him off.

"I've been able to take care of myself for five years Thor." He says, and he can't quite keep the edge out of his voice. "I don't need you babying me anymore."

Thor doesn't say anything for several seconds, and Loki can't help glancing over at him, seeing his brother sitting with his hands clasped, staring at the floor.

"... I know." Thor finally says, his usually booming voice quiet. "I'm sorry. I just... I worry about you Loki. I always have."

"You don't need to..." Loki begins to protest, but Thor cuts him off, shaking his head.

"I do. Loki..." Thor turns, looking at him, his features lined in naked pain. "you're my little brother Loki. And you've never... you've always forgotten to take care of yourself. You've always had that tendency. And I know you've managed okay... more than okay, on your own for years now, but... Loki, I can't explain to you how worried I've been all this time. I've thought about you every day, scared where you were, how you were. The only one who knew anything was Mum, and she... she wouldn't ever tell me or Dad much because she said you didn't want her to. I was so scared all the time..."

"Then why did you wait so long?" Loki says, more unkindly than he'd intended. He feels bad at the hurt expression which flits across his brother's face.

"Because I'm a coward." Thor says plainly. "I was afraid you'd turn me away, wouldn't want anything to do with me..."

Loki looks away, guilt suddenly like a lead weight in his belly.

"... I wouldn't have." He says, almost too softly to hear.

"And I know that now." Thor continues. "And that just makes me feel like more of a coward, because I wasted all that time..."

"You aren't a coward Thor." Loki says, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. "I didn't try to see you either. I didn't exactly encourage you."

"But don't you see Loki?" Thor insists, his voice almost pleading. "I'm you're older brother. I'm supposed to take care of you. And I didn't. It was my responsibility and I failed at that. And when I find you like this, sitting out in the cold, shivering, forgetting that you can go inside where it's warm, I'm just... it reminds me of that failure. I'm supposed to protect you, and I haven't been."

Loki's jaw clenches, his eyes suddenly stinging painfully, his throat tight.

God, what is wrong with him? Why does he keep doing this.

He feels embarrassed and shameful. Pathetic.

Thor is right.

It seems like he barely can take care of himself. It's always been this way, since he was a boy, and he never had any friends.

Instead the other kids is school would pick on him, call him names and beat him up, and he would need his big brother to come and save him.

It must look so pitiful to Thor, seeing him like this still. Seeing him like a child, a fucking stupid child who didn't even understand how to keep from freezing to death.

All the while Thor himself was the definition of successful adulthood. His own family, a beautiful wife and two amazing children, his own, gorgeous house, a high paying position in Odin's law firm.

By comparison, Loki's life was an unmitigated failure. He was an unmitigated failure. His store was struggling. That was putting the truth of the matter lightly. If it went under, he was going to be left in massive debt with no way to pay it off, and no future prospects.

He'd dreamed of owning his own business for a long time, dealing in something he actually cared about. And, he supposes, he'd achieved that to an extent. Maintaining it, though, that was harder than he'd ever imagined it being.

He couldn't tell Thor that though. He knew his brother would try to intervene, and then he would tell Mum and then Dad, and then Loki would only seem an even greater disappointment to all of them.

He swallows thickly, trying to shove the sick emotion back down, forcing the tears threatening at the backs of his eyes away. He shakes his head.

"I'm alright Thor." He manages to say. "You don't... you don't have to keep worrying about me."

The words sound unconvincing, even to his own ears.

Thor doesn't say anything for a long while then. Loki turns his face away, and he thinks his brother must be angry with him.

But then he feels Thor's arm slide around his shoulders, and Loki can't help the way he sinks beneath the comforting weight of it, the way he falls against Thor's side. The way his brother's warmth, the solidness of him makes him feel safe.

He closes his eyes, and Thor's arms pulls tighter around him.

"I love you Loki." He says.

Loki swallows, and he turns his face, pressing it against his brother's chest.

"I love you too Thor." He says. But it's so soft, he isn't at all sure Thor had even heard it.


	4. Chapter 4

Leah can't even say she's surprised when she opens the front door of her flat and finds Loki sitting outside it, his back against the wall, his face pressed against the tops of his bony knees.

She sighs, stepping out into the hallway.

Loki doesn't say anything, but he doesn't really need to. The kid's never known how to just ask for help. She hopes he hasn't been sitting out here for hours.

She's scheduled to go back to work for him tomorrow. Darcy not until the day after that. She'd called him once on Christmas Eve to see how he was doing. Loki predictably had told her everything was fine, but she had been able to hear the dullness in his voice which told her maybe it wasn't. She'd made one last ditch effort to invite him over to spend Christmas with her and her Mum, but he'd declined, again, telling her not to worry. A little hard, she'd thought with frustration, when she knew he was probably going to hole up in the shop, trying to distract himself with work from the fact that he was alone on a day when everyone else was with their family.

Loki worried her. He'd always worried her.

"What's going on?" She asks him, crossing her arms over her chest and looking down at him.

Long seconds pass before she hears his muffled voice mutter out.

"... Nothing."

Leah rolls her eyes.

"Right." She says. "That's why you're sitting outside my flat, curled up into a ball. Loki..." She sighs, exasperated. "why didn't you knock? You know I would have let you in."

"... I didn't want to bother you." He answers, still keeping his face hidden.

"You're bothering me now by not telling me what's wrong." She tells him flatly, feeling torn.

He's been crying, she thinks, hearing the roughness of his voice. She's never known what to do with that. Never felt comfortable providing... comfort. But she'd never been able to ignore the way it weighed on her heart, to see him like this.

Loki's always been this way, since the time she first met him at University.

Toughest little kid she'd ever known. Strong, proud, wouldn't give up for anything, wouldn't back down, even when he had no chance. But oddly, contradictorally sensitive. He cried so easily, was always so easily hurt. And he always tried to hide it. Tried to act like nothing bothered him, when in truth, almost everything touched him, in some way or other.

She'd seen him stand up to bullies, seen him push past his initial shyness to tell them off when they wouldn't leave him alone. Seen him get up off the ground when, inevitably, they'd hit him, and tell them off again.

Later she'd find him hiding in his room, crying desperately to himself.

Ten years later, nothing had really changed. He was still very much the same little boy she'd first known.

Emotional, and bad at dealing with those emotions. Shockingly intelligent, funny, cynical, prone to depression, quick to anger. But underneath all of that, above everything, Leah knew, Loki had a kind and generous heart, and wanted, more than anything, to do the right thing. He had, she thought, an unhealthy need to please people, a wish to know they thought well of him.

He was a good kid, despite how hard she knew he always was on himself.

She'd been his only friend at university, and remembers distinctly how often he had talked of his family, and how much he had missed them. Particularly his older brother, Thor. Loki had worshiped him, Leah recalls, had looked up to him, almost as a hero.

By the time she'd found out about his falling out with all of them, Loki had already suffered weeks of homelessness.

A few days after she'd talked to his mother, she'd gotten a knock on her apartment door, and when she'd opened it, Loki had been standing there, practically naked and beaten to hell, his arms wrapped round his skinny torso, face and body bloody and bruised, shivering uncontrollably with nothing but his underwear on.

Leah doesn't think she'd ever felt more afraid in her entire life. Not even when her father had left her and her mother when she'd been a kid.

She'd immediately ushered Loki inside, horrified, demanding to know what had happened, even as she'd marched him to her bathroom and sat him down on the toilet, looking frantically for her first aide kit.

Getting him to tell her had been like pulling teeth, but eventually he'd admitted that he'd been living on the streets for the past two weeks, and that earlier that evening, three other guys had jumped him and beaten him up, stealing his clothes and leaving him half conscious in an abandoned alleyway.

He'd come to her, he said, because he didn't know where else to go.

Leah had ridden Loki's case for weeks after that about why he hadn't thought he could just come to her immediately after running away from home.

Strange kid. Stupid kid, Leah sometimes thought. Too damn proud.

He might be the smartest person she'd ever known, but he didn't know anything about surviving out in the world. Book smart versus street smart, is what they called it. Loki had no street smarts. He'd been too sheltered all his life, and socially awkward on top of it.

He was always letting his mouth get him into trouble. And people were rotten. They didn't care if they were picking on someone half their size and who couldn't defend themselves. The number of times she'd found guys beating up on him, guys that must have outweighed the kid by a good thirty, forty, fifty pounds, she can't even readily recall.

When Leah had first met and befriended him, she'd thought for a long time that she was doing so out of pity. After all, he was a lot younger than her, and what real interest would a girl like her have in a little kid like that? She just felt bad for him, she'd reasoned, the way he was always by himself, the way the other student's picked on him. At least the shitty ones. She'd been lying to herself, of course. She'd realized that a long time ago.

Loki could be infuriating with his pride and his tendency to isolate and his easily hurt emotions. But he was also an amazing person. Brilliant and passionate and talented, and so incredibly, really heartbreakingly loyal. Leah had never had a friend like him. Never had anyone outside of her mum care about her the way Loki did. She felt on a daily basis that he would give his life for her in a second, if that was what he had to do. He'd gotten smacked around and beaten up plenty of times already for standing up for her whenever some guy made a rude or ugly remark.

That was always so horrible, watching him get hurt for her. She'd tried telling him to stop, that she didn't need him to defend her. But he always did, even knowing what would most likely happen. That was the other thing. Just how brave Loki was. He wasn't fearless. He was scared of a lot of things. But he never let that fear stop him, and that was what made it so incredible.

Making it all worse was the fact that he'd had a crush on her since he was a boy, and he didn't even fucking seem to know it.

If she had a dollar for every time she'd caught him staring at her with dreamy eyes, she'd be as rich as his family was. But there was that social awkwardness again. Loki could be unbelievably blunt and in your face, and then turn around and by cripplingly shy. He didn't have the first clue as how to talk to girls. She'd attempted to encourage him in that direction a few times, trying to bolster his confidence whenever he happened to mention to her that he found this girl or that girl cute. She would tell him to go and talk to her, introduce himself, and what was the worst that could happen.

Apparently, Leah underestimated just how bad it could be.

Loki was a dork, sure. But a lot of girls liked dorks. And once they got past that shyness and the oddity of him, they'd find a really great guy.

But the few times Loki had actually built up the courage to talk to a girl, it had either ended with her laughing in his face or sneering at him for actually daring to pollute her air with his presence.

Leah didn't get it.

Loki was a good looking man. Tall, with sharp, strong features, beautiful white skin and hair as equally black to set it off. Not to mention eyes so vividly green, they seemed almost to glow.

She couldn't lie to herself even that she found him very attractive. Once you got to know him, that attraction only grew deeper.

The only reason she hadn't encouraged or reciprocated his crush on her was that, well... it felt strange. She'd met Loki was he was thirteen years old, and he'd always been to her like a little brother.

Still, she wished he could find somebody. If for no other reason than to know somebody would be there to take care of him when she couldn't. It was stressing her already stressed out life more, not knowing when Loki might show up unannounced at her place, and what kind of condition he might be in.

She sighs when she realizes he isn't going to answer her, continuing to sit there with his face hiding against his knees.

"Come on then." She finally says, reaching down and taking hold of his arm, tugging on it.

Luckily he seems to get the memo, pushing himself up onto his feet, towering, as he does now, over her. He keeps his face turned down, and she can't not notice the way he sways a moment where he stands before her arm around his elbow steadies him.

She looks at him carefully, angling under him to get a better look at his face, and sees for the first time how pale he is, his skin covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Predictably, his eyes are bloodshot from crying.

"What's wrong with you?" She asks bluntly, even as she maneuver's him into her apartment, kicking the door closed with her foot and leading him towards her ratty couch.

She pushes him down onto it, sitting herself down in front of him on her coffee table.

He flinches back when she tries to press her palm against his forehead, but she only bats his hands out of the way and does what she wants.

"Christ Loki, you're burning up." She says, shocked dismay hitting her hard at the obvious fever he's running.

"I'm alright." He mutters, pulling his head away from her hand.

"Shut up. No you aren't." She says, angry. What the hell had he been doing? Rolling around in the snow. "I swear to God Loki, I leave you alone for a few days, and you show up on my doorstep practically dying."

"I'm not dying." He protests weakly, though a moment later she sees his already glassy eyes fill suddenly with tears, spilling over in an instant, down his cheeks.

He wipes at them, plainly embarrassed, and she realizes he's begun to shiver.

"Wait here." She tells him. "I'm getting a thermometer."

She pushes herself up and makes quickly for her bathroom, shaking her head.

She didn't know what to do with this kid. If his fever was high enough, she was going to have to take him to hospital.

As she's rummaging through her drawers, looking for the thermometer, she thinks about all the times she's noticed that raggedy, thin coat Loki wears all the time. About the way it couldn't possibly be doing anything to actually keep him warm, especially in the dead of winter in London, when it got absolutely freezing. He was always walking around in old clothes, worn out shoes which water soaked through, into his socks, his arms wrapped around his painfully thin body. The way he always insisted on walking to and from work, not wanting to "waste" his money on cab fare. She'd finally convinced him to start taking the bus, at least. But the nearest stop was a couple blocks away, and in this weather, even that was dangerous.

Honestly, she's amazed he hasn't gotten deathly ill before now, with the way he treats himself.

Finally she finds what she's looking for. On the way back to the living room, she goes into her bedroom and grabs the wool blanket off her bed.

"Here, take your jacket and shirt off and put this around yourself." She orders as she drops the blanket on the couch next to him and begins taking the thermometer out of its case.

Loki looks up at her, seeming, for a moment, to hesitate.

"I've seen you naked before Lo." She says flatly. "What the hell are you embarrassed for?"

He looks away, muttering something too low for her to make out, but begins to do as she asked, unzipping that shitty jacket of his and taking it off, following a moment later with unbuttoning his dress shirt, pulling the hem out from his pants and dropping it on top of his jacket. He's still wearing an undershirt.

"That too." She says, seeing that it's soaked through with sweat.

Again he hesitates a moment, before finally pulling it off over his head.

He reaches quickly for the blanket to cover himself with, but not before Leah gets a good look at just how thin he is, ribs poking out too prominently against his skin, stomach sunken in, collarbone obvious. He looks like he hasn't eaten in weeks.

She shakes her head, more sad than anything. She's talked with him about this before. She's talked with him about a lot of things before.

Getting him to actually take better care of himself isn't so easy.

"Open." She says when the thermometer is ready, and reluctantly, he does as he's told. She shoves the instrument in under his tongue. "Close." She orders again. "And don't shift it around. Keep as still as you can until I say otherwise."

Loki doesn't even give her an eye roll, as is customary with him. Probably feeling too horrible, she thinks, to even muster the strength for that. Instead he just blinks, and more of those tears roll down his face.

She fucking hates this.

She hates how much pain he's in, all the time. Hates how, if he's sick enough, he isn't going to be able to run the shop until he gets better, which is only going to stress him out more, the both of them knowing how badly it's struggling to just break even each month. She'll take over duties for him, of course, along with Darcy. But Loki really doesn't have much in his life beyond running that book shop, and when he doesn't have work to distract him, his thoughts can turn dangerous.

She hates how she doesn't know from day to day if he's going to be okay.

Loki huddles in on himself, holding the blanket round his shoulders, his shivering growing more pronounced.

Leah takes the thermometer from his mouth after a minute, checking it.

101.3. Shit.

She shakes her head again.

"Loki, I should take you to hospital." She says. "You've got a bad fever."

Loki's face almost seems to crumple at the suggestion, and he shakes his head.

"No." He says, almost begs. "Leah, please. I don't want to go to hospital. Please, I just... I'll be alright. I'm alright."

"Lo, you're running a temperature of 101.3. That's dangerous."

"I'm alright. Please, please Leah."

She has to stop herself from growling in frustration, or giving into her desire to grab hold of him to try and shake some sense into that stubborn brain of his.

"Loki, if you don't want me to take you to the ER, then why the hell did you come here in the first place? How long have you been like this? And what the hell did you do to get so sick in the first place?"

Loki looks away from her then, pulling the blanket tighter around himself. For a long moment, he doesn't say anything, and Leah feels about an inch away from tearing her own hair out.

"I just... I didn't want to be alone right now." He says, so softly she barely catches him.

Leah stares at him, and despite her anger, she feels her heart sink.

"You didn't walk here from your apartment, did you?" She asks, dreading the answer. Fuck, if he'd have just called her, she would have come and picked him up.

His silence to the question is all the answer she needs.

"For Christ's sake, Loki. Why? You live at least eight kilometers from me. Are you trying to kill yourself? It's got to be twenty degrees out, maybe less."

"I was sick before I started walking..." he mumbles, like that makes it better.

"You were sick before you started walking? Loki, I don't... even know what to say to that. How did you think that would be a good idea if you were already sick?"

"I don't know." He answers miserably, sounding like some little kid who had gotten caught stealing. "I didn't think, I guess. I just didn't want to be alone."

Leah closes her eyes, pushing her hands back through her long, black hair, breathing in deeply.

Just stay calm, she tells herself. Don't get mad.

She makes herself sit back down on the coffee table, putting herself on an even level with him.

"Lo, tell me what's going on." She entreats. "I won't take you to hospital unless the fever gets worse. But you have to talk to me."

Loki continues to sit there for long seconds, saying nothing, tears still falling silently from his eyes.

"My brother came to see me." He finally says, his voice rough.

Leah sits up straighter, surprised.

She hadn't been expecting that, at all.

"Your brother. You mean Thor?"

Loki nods, keeping his eyes from her.

"When was that?" She asks, both curious and worried.

Loki never spoke about his family anymore. Not to her. Not to Darcy. Not to anyone. And Leah wasn't stupid enough to try and bring it up with him.

"Christmas eve." Loki says softly. "He... he came to the shop. Invited me to spend the night with his family. His wife and kids."

"... Did you go?" Leah presses carefully. This is uncertain territory for her.

Loki nods, still looking away.

"And what happened?"

She sees Loki visibly swallow, still shaking.

She really should take him to the ER, she thinks. His fever goes up even the smallest amount, and she's going to.

"They were wonderful. He's... Thor has a beautiful family. They were n... nice. All of them were nice."

"Then what's wrong?" Leah asks. "Loki, what is it?"

He shrugs, his long, thin hands clenching in the material of the blanket.

"I don't know. I just..." he pauses, fidgeting. "His life seems so perfect, and everything in mine is such a mess. I'm such a mess, and... and then he wants me to see my mother and father again, wants me to be part of the family again, and I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I should."

"You see your mother sometimes." Leah says slowly. This is really beyond her ability to deal with, she thinks dismally, even while knowing Loki doesn't really have anyone else to talk to. Well, he has Darcy.

Darcy's a good kid. But she can be over energetic, and that doesn't always mix well with someone like Loki.

"Yeah..." Loki's voice trails off. "Only sometimes."

Leah sits there, trying to think of what she should say, not really knowing. It's a good thing for Loki to have his family. That's what she thinks. But just saying that outright might not have the effect on Loki she wants. She knew all about the sense of betrayal he still carried over their lying to him about his adoption. Knew about the strained relationship he'd had with his father before then.

"If I get involved with them again, they're going to see how much of a failure I am. They'll find out how badly the shop is struggling and... and Odin especially will hate that." Loki keeps talking. "And then a couple days ago, I called Thor and... and asked him if he wanted to go to the ice skating rink. You know, the one near the shop?" He looks up at her finally, and Leah nods. "And I waited for him. He told me half an hour. He'd be there in half an hour. But he didn't show up for thirty minutes after that, and I t-tried... I tried to be mad at him, but it was just the same bullshit it always is with him. I ended up feeling like... like it was my fault, somehow. And he didn't even say anything to make me think that. I just felt bad, because I'd been so angry, and then I saw him and I couldn't... I couldn't tell him how it made me feel. He didn't even call. He could have called. I could have told him that, but I just didn't, because it was like I was the one who screwed up. Like it was my fault for even asking him to meet me in the first place and I just..."

He takes a shuddering breath, more tears streaming down his face.

"I just don't know if I want that back in my life. That constant feeling of not being good enough. Of feeling like I need to apologize for everything about myself, for things which aren't even... even my fault."

Well it was obvious now to Leah how Loki had gotten so sick in the first place, if he'd been waiting outside for his brother to show up for an hour. It had been minus two degrees a few days ago.

"You know that wasn't your fault though, right?" Leah presses. "You can't blame yourself for asking him to hang out and then he's late."

"I know." Loki answers. "I know that."

"Why didn't you tell him how upset you were? I would've punched him in the face for being late like that and not even calling to warn me."

Leah half expects Loki to laugh, but he doesn't. Just shifts around on the couch like he's uncomfortable and worried.

"I can't." He mutters. "I can't do that with Thor. He's..."

"What? Too perfect? You make it sound like you don't deserve your own family Lo." Leah says bluntly.

Loki's shoulders hunch, and he turns his face away.

"Do you want to see them?" Leah presses. "Do you want to see your family again?"

Several seconds pass in silence.

"I don't know." He finally answers. Another, long pause. "... I miss them." He says, his voice almost soundless. "I think about them all the time..."

"Then it shouldn't even be a question Lo." Leah tells him. "You want to see them, you should. But..." she adds quickly when she sees his mouth open to protest. "you have to work on your communication with them. Not everyone is as smart as you Loki, and they aren't going to see as clearly as you do the impact their actions and words have on another person. Some people need to be told when they've done something to hurt you, or when they've messed up in some way. I know that sucks, and it feels like they should know already, but not everyone is as aware or perceptive as they should be. With your brother, don't let the way he is keep you from expressing yourself around him. Don't let him make you feel bad for feeling angry or upset. If he does something to piss you off, you need to tell him so. Don't expect him to see it himself. I've met your brother Lo, and he's a really nice guy, but he's also not the brightest bulb in the box. Some people need help."

For a moment, Loki looks like he'll say something in response, staring back at her with wide, glassy eyes.

But then he just seems to deflate, sinking back against the cushions of the couch, looking absolutely miserable. He's shaking harder now, the sweat thicker across his forehead and face, hands trembling where they clutch at the blanket.

"Loki..." Leah starts, suddenly alarmed, standing and stepping closer to him.

"... I... I don't f-feel so good." He mutters weakly.

She's reaching for him when she sees his eyes go wide, and it's all the warning she gets before he doubles over, throwing his head over the side of the couch and vomiting onto the floor.

Nothing comes out but watery liquid, but it's enough to make Loki start crying again, profuse and frantic apologies escaping past his lips.

"I'm sorry! Oh, I'm sorry!" He says desperately, before suddenly he's grabbing up his own shirt and climbing off the couch, getting on his hands and knees on the floor like he's going to wipe his puke up with it.

Leah has to forcibly stop him, reaching out and grabbing hold of his bony wrists, pulling his arms away.

"Loki, don't. Don't do that." She says.

"But I messed up your floor." He protests, trying to pull back. He feels so weak to her, unable to break her hold, and she realizes abruptly he's a lot sicker than she even realized.

"It doesn't matter. Loki, how many days have you been like this?"

"... A couple. I think... a couple..." he says vaguely, sounding spaced out.

"Jesus, alright." Leah says. "Come on. Up, we're going to the ER."

"I don need a doctor..." he slurs.

"Yes, you do." Leah tells him, letting go of his wrists and hooking her arms under his armpits. God, he feels twice as hot as he did twenty minutes ago. "This isn't a request Loki. Get up. I'm taking you to the ER."

There are thick tears streaming down his face again, and whatever fight he'd had left in him seems to crumble as he lets Leah hoist him up. She shoulders his light weight easily enough, despite his tall, gangly body, one arm wrapped round his back, his arm slung over her shoulders.

"Come on Lo." She says more gently as he presses his face against her shoulder, and she can feel him shaking, both with chill and suppressed sobs. "It's okay hon. It's going to be alright."

He doesn't say anything, only nodding his head jerkily against her.

Leah feels her own throat going tight, her eyes stinging.

God, she hates this so fucking much.


	5. Chapter 5

Here is an illustration from the prequel to this story "Antique Christmas".  This is the moment when Thor finally goes to see Loki at his book shop on Chrismas eve.

//

Pneumonia.

Loki had fucking _pneumonia_.

The doctor treating him had told her if they'd waited just an hour more to bring him to the ER, then his condition could very well have degenerated into a critical, possibly even fatal state.

Leah had locked herself in the bathroom after that conversation and cried her eyes out for nearly fifteen minutes. Then she'd pulled out her cell phone and called Loki's Mum. He would be angry at her for it, but she really didn't care.

She didn't know how much longer she could handle this kind of stress.

She keeps thinking, as she waits in the front lobby of the hospital, what would have happened if Loki hadn't come to her today. Keeps imagining him, holed up in that low rent flat of his, all alone, getting sicker and sicker, and nobody even knowing, because he wouldn't tell anybody.

They had him back in the ER right now, administering fluids and trying to get his temperature down, which, the doctor had told her, had skyrocketed to 105.1 by the time they'd gotten there.

She'd known it was bad as she'd been driving them, Loki huddled in the passengers side seat, shaking violently and sweating profusely. He'd thrown up again too, once again apologizing frantically to her as he'd begun sobbing, embarrassed and obviously frightened, and Leah had told him over and over that it was okay, that she didn't care about her car, that he was going to be alright. By the time they'd reached the hospital, he'd barely been able to stand, he'd grown so weak, halfway collapsing in her arms as they'd trudged across the parking lot to the entrance. Thank God there had been nurses who'd seen quickly what was happening and had gotten Loki into a wheel chair before rolling him into the back. Leah had wanted to follow, but of course they hadn't let her.

It had been nearly an hour and a half before the doctor had come out to talk to her and tell her what was going on.

They said she could go back to see Loki if she could get someone from his immediate family to come too.

She was waiting for Frigga now, and hadn't _that_ been a fun conversation.

"It better just be you to come." Leah had told her when she had started to say she had to tell her husband and older son. "Loki's in a pretty fragile state right now, and I think it would just stress him out more if he had to face... everybody."

Frigga had seemed hesitant at first to agree, and Leah couldn't really blame her. Getting a call in the middle of the afternoon, the day after New Years, letting you know your youngest child was sick in the hospital with pneumonia, must have been nothing short of horrifying. Of course she would want the rest of her family there for support.

But Leah remembered what Loki had said earlier at her apartment, about the anxiety and uncertainty he was feeling about letting his family back into his life, and what a mess he was emotionally from all of it. With him as sick as he now was, the last thing he needed was that extra pressure.

It had taken some more convincing, but eventually Frigga had agreed, and said she was on her way.

That had been twenty minutes ago, and Leah was expecting her any time now.

Still, it's a massive relief when she sees Loki's mother come through the entrance doors.

She doesn't see Leah at first, making a beeline for the front desk.

"Frigga!" Leah calls to her, and Loki's mum turns, her eyes searching a moment before they find the younger woman, wide and frantic.

She starts forward, questions already spilling out of her mouth.

"Where is he?" She asks. "Is he alright? Have they said anything?"

"He's in the back still. They've got him on intravenous fluids and are working to get his temp down. The doctor said he'll be fine, but he's likely to be here for a few days at least." Leah answers as well as she can, feeling ill at the tears already welling in Frigga's eyes.

"Oh God, I should have known something was wrong. He hadn't called in several days. He... he usually calls me every Sunday. Did you... how did you know? Did you find him?"

Leah shakes her head, already dreading telling her this part.

"He walked to my place from his flat." She says, cringing inwardly.

"What?!" Frigga gasps, a look of absolute horror crossing over his features.

"I know. He's insane. I asked him why he didn't just call me if he wanted to see me, and he didn't have an answer. He... he said he didn't want to be alone."

"Oh, that stupid, _stupid_ boy!" Frigga snaps, her hand coming up and curling in her hair, tugging at it. "Why does he do these things? How can he be so smart and have such little sense?!"

"That's the question of the hour." Leah laments with her, shaking her head. "Listen, the doctor told me we could go back and see him once you arrived, but I think... I mean, we should take it easy on him. He's not doing good, besides being so sick I mean. He's been having a rough time lately."

Frigga looks at her with naked concern, and Leah can see the thousand and one questions the older woman wants to ask. The sad truth is, Leah has seen more of Loki, much more, than his own mother for the past several years. Knows more at this point about Loki's life than anyone in his actual family.

She feels bad for Loki's Mum, if she's being honest. The woman cares so much about him, and it has to be hell, having so little contact with him, especially when Leah knows Frigga has to be aware of how neglectful of himself Loki tended to be.

Loki's father and brother, that was a different situation. From everything Loki had told her about his dad, and from the times she had met him and seen his interaction with his younger son, the man was, in Leah's view, hardly better than a bully. He loved Loki, that was obvious to her, but he had no fucking clue about how to treat and talk to him either, and seemed completely unaware of the way he constantly belittled, talked down to and just generally shit on Loki constantly. It was no wonder, Leah had reasoned the first time she'd seen the two of them together, that Loki had turned out the way he did, if he'd had to grow up with that kind of pressure and that kind of... well, meanness, was the word she supposed she was looking for. Odin practically fawned over Thor, his pride and eagerness to show off and brag about the older boy plain as day, while Loki he treated like a woeful disappointment, even almost as an embarrassment.

The first time she'd met Odin, he'd looked her up and down, a judgmental frown on his face, and said, Loki standing right next to her...

"So has the boy finally found himself a girlfriend? It's about damn time. I've been saying people are starting to get ideas about him."

Loki's face, Leah remembers, had turned beat red in mortification, his entire body seeming to shrink down on itself in shame, his eyes fixing on the ground, unable to look at either her or his dad.

Leah had scoffed loudly, a disgusted sneer in her voice as she'd answered that she wasn't Loki's girlfriend, just his friend, a that it didn't matter what anyone thought about him, that he was fine as he was, and that any parent worth a damn would tell him the very same.

To say she and Odin hadn't gotten off to a good start would have been the understatement of the century.

Loki's brother, Thor, was something else entirely.

Very nice man. Good natured, kind, and so charismatic, you felt like you were going blind just to look at him. Thor was the type of person who, the moment he walked into a room, he just sucked all of the attention away from anyone or anything else, and brought it all to himself. Everybody seemed to love him, seemed to start smiling just because he was there, wanted to be around him, almost _needed_ to.

He was also pretty fucking dense sometimes, which, Leah thinks, should have been Loki's first tip off that they didn't share the same DNA. Though both Frigga and Odin were incredibly intelligent, and, to be fair, she supposed so was Thor, in his own way, underneath all of the near sighted, self-absorbed egotism he had going on.

Leah could only imagine growing up with that as your older brother.

Neither of them, Leah had judged, were what Loki needed right now.

"I'll go see if I can find somebody to take us back there." Leah says now, shaking the thoughts from her head.

Frigga nods, agreeing, though she looks antsy, her eyes flitting round the lobby, like she's looking herself for someone to assist them.

Luckily, it doesn't take Leah long to find a nurse to go and talk to the doctor and see if it's alright for them to come back, and a few minutes later, the same nurse returns, telling them to follow her.

Leah let's Loki's mum go ahead of her, a nervous dread forming grossly in the pit of her stomach. She's always hated hospitals, and all of the action and chaos going on back here is only making it worse. There are so many people, so much noise and urgency.

If it's making her feel this way, she doesn't even want to think about what it's doing to Loki.

"He's going to be a little droopy because we've got him on some pain killers right now." The nurse is saying. "It's nothing to be alarmed at."

"What sort of pain killer?" Frigga demands, not quite managing to keep the concern out of her voice.

Leah can't disagree. Loki has such a sensitive system and a fragile constitution. It's one reason he doesn't drink, or do any kind of drugs at all, not even pot. Hell, he won't ever take anything stronger than an aspirin no matter what kind of pain he's in. She remembers taking him out to a bar on his 21st birthday. He'd had one beer before he was completely smashed, half a beer more before he'd had to break for the men's room. She remembers she'd followed him in, not giving a shit about the strange looks she'd gotten. Loki had been in there for nearly an hour puking his guts out, and she'd sat with him, holding his hair out of his face and rubbing his back, before telling him at last that they were going home, and that he was sleeping at her place that night. Another time, before she'd realized how little he could actually take, she'd given him a joint to smoke. He hadn't wanted to, she remembers, and she'd fucking pressured him into trying it, telling him to live a little. A couple hits off the thing, and he'd totally freaked out, had started shaking and tearing at his own skin, scared out of his mind, thinking something awful was happening to him.

Leah had never felt more guilty in all her life.

"Just a Norco." The nurse says easily. "He was complaining of a pretty bad headache and muscle soreness, so we gave him a low dosage."

"Is he..." Frigga starts, then pauses. "is he healthy, otherwise? I mean, besides the pneumonia?"

"He's underweight by a pretty fair amount." The nurse answers honestly. "He's coming in around 150 pounds. Ideally, for someone of his build and height, we'd want to see closer to 180 or 185."

That doesn't surprise Leah either. She'd seen what he looked like earlier. He was way too thin.

From the look on Frigga's face, it doesn't really surprise her either, but Leah can see the heartache there nonetheless.

The rest of the walk is made in silence, until they come to a curtained off area.

"Just through here. The doctor should be with you shortly." The nurse says, before taking off in another direction.

Pulling the curtain aside and walking in, Leah sees Loki propped up against a bunch of pillows on one of those mechanical hospital beds, wearing one of those open backed, loose gowns, the thing hanging precariously off his shoulders, threatening to fall down any moment from the narrowness of them.

Loki blinks a moment as he stares at her and his mother, his eyes glazed over and unfocused. It takes a long, few seconds then before he seems to realize what he's looking at, and almost instantly, his eyes widen in shock, and then he's turning away, his big hands coming up to cover his face.

"Loki, honey..." Frigga starts, stepping towards him.

Loki doesn't answer her, only shaking his head, keeping his face hidden.

"Oh, darling." Frigga goes on, undeterred, wrapping her arms around her son and pulling him against her.

Leah stands back, watching.

"I had to tell her Lo." She finally says, feeling only slightly guilty. He's obviously mortified. He hates being seen as weak, or helpless. Leah knows that goes doubly so for his family, who he already struggles with feeling good enough for. But his mother had to know. Someone besides her did.

"Loki, baby, what happened? When did you get so sick?" Frigga goes on gently, smoothing her hand over her son's head, pressing a kiss to his temple. "When I talked to your brother about his meeting with you, he said you'd been waiting out in the cold for him for over an hour. That you hadn't waited inside where it was warm."

Leah purses her lips, crossing her arms over her chest.

This might get ugly, she thinks, praying it doesn't.

"And then Leah tells me you _walked_ to her apartment from your own this morning. Loki, my God, it's below freezing outside. In your condition..."

"I'm sorry." Loki croaks out then, his voice even more rough than it had been earlier, barely even a whisper now. "I'm an idiot."

"You're not an idiot honey." Frigga says, her own voice strained, sounding on the verge of tears. "You just don't always think about yourself very well."

"You're mad at me though." Loki mutters, dropping his hand finally but turning his face away.

Frigga pauses a moment, thinking.

"I am a little, yeah." She admits. "But Loki, it's only because I love you." She continues quickly when she sees him shrink down on himself. "I love you so much honey, and so does Leah. We all do. It scares us when you don't take care of yourself. Loki, you could have died." At that, Frigga's voice finally cracks, and Leah sees the tears that had been building in her eyes finally slip free, down her face.

Loki glances towards her, his own face twisting, eyes wet. He reaches for her with a shaking hand, laying it on her wrist and squeezing gently.

"Don't cry Mum." He says. "I'm sorry. Please don't cry."

"I just need you to be okay Loki." Frigga tells him tearfully.

"I know Mum. I... I will be. I promise I will be." He tells her.

"Oh, and you're so thin." His mother goes on worriedly, cupping his cheek in her palm, looking at him closely.

Loki's eyes flit from her, saying nothing to that.

Loki does eat, Leah thinks. It's just that he also often forgets to. It isn't really a case of an eating disorder. He just... forgets. Which... Leah isn't really sure which is worse.

She's tried helping him there so many times. Often making him bagged lunches and bringing them to the book shop in the morning, knowing he probably won't have remembered to bring anything himself, or stopping and picking him up a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast. Often inviting him out to have dinner with her. On top of his forgetfulness, Loki just didn't have a very big appetite to begin with, so it was tough.

She tells him constantly that if he would just eat more, he would probably feel better, have more energy, feel stronger. He always tells her he tries, and she knows it embarrasses him, to be reminded constantly that other people can see the way he struggles. That it's obvious what a mess he is.

Again, Loki's mother thankfully picks up on his discomfort and doesn't press the issue, instead returning to petting and kissing and fussing over him, until after a while they're at last interrupted by the doctor coming in to talk to them.

It's a relief, really, Leah thinks, as she settles into one of the chairs in the room. It's always been hard for her to watch Loki like this. So miserable in his certainty that he isn't good enough.

It breaks her heart, sometimes, to see how the presence of his mother so often seems only to serve to remind him of that, instead of providing the comfort and safety that Leah knows Frigga intends.

/

Loki huddles into the corner of the couch, holding the blanket round himself and staring listlessly at the television, barely registering the program playing on the screen. Leah had turned it on and left it on the first channel to show up, handing him the remote and telling him she was going to go and make some lunch.

Loki hadn't had the energy or the desire to look for anything to watch, and so had just left it.

He'd finally been discharged from the hospital after being forced to stay overnight. Mother had begun to offer for him to come home with her and stay at their house until he was fully recovered, and Loki had felt nearly mortified at the prospect of being forced back under the same roof as Odin, but not knowing how to tell his mother no without sounding like an ingrate, he'd floundered and stumbled over what to do before Leah had come to his rescue, saying that he could stay with her, insisting that it wouldn't be any kind of inconvenience.

Mother had been plainly disappointed, and Loki had felt bad about it, but he couldn't handle being around Odin. Not now.

That Leah had seen and understood that meant more to Loki than he would probably ever be able to express to her.

He'd been at her place the past two days now, absolutely miserable and probably making Leah's life equally so, though he was trying his hardest not to be too great of an imposition.

That was difficult when he was so sick still, too sore to move without feeling pain almost agonizing in its intensity, suffering crushing headaches and labored breathing. The nausea is the worst though. He keeps throwing up, the consistency of it prompting Leah to finally just give him a bucket to keep at his side, too many failed attempts to make it to the bathroom in time, Loki supposes.

He was disgusting, and he still wonders how it is Leah hasn't lost all patience and thrown him out yet.

The doctor had told him that he was going to have to rest for at least a week, more practically speaking two. Loki had protested, mortified at the prospect of having nothing to occupy him or his thoughts for that long, but Mother and Leah had overridden him, and Loki had known better than to argue against the both of them.

Darcy had agreed to take over duties at the store for the time being, with Leah working the books from home so she could keep an eye on him. Loki feels grateful to have the two of them, though he can't keep from worrying about the shop. Darcy is a good sale's person, and has a healthy respect for the value of the antique books he carries, but Loki has a difficult time trusting his collection to anyone other than himself. He's put too much work into it.

Thor had kept calling too, Mother obviously having told him, and no doubt Odin too, about the pneumonia. Leah had finally taken his phone from him and answered herself, telling Thor what was up, assuring him that she was taking care of his little brother and that he didn't have to worry. Still, Thor had wanted to come over, and to Loki's eternal gratitude, Leah had told him that wasn't really a good idea just then.

Loki looks up from the television when Leah walks back into the room, holding a bowl of soup in one hand and a thermometer in the other.

He groans, pressing himself against the cushions, as if that will help him escape.

She's been taking him temperature every hour for the past two days, and he can't stand it any longer.

"I'm fine." He tells her as she approaches, leaning as far back from her as he can.

"No you aren't." She tells him flatly, setting the bowl down on the coffee table and moving around to face him. She shakes her head when Loki hunches down on himself. "Loki, I need to check your temperature again. Don't make this hard."

"You just checked it I thought." He complains uselessly. He already knows he's not going to win this battle, but he's so tired of all of this.

"I checked it an hour ago and it was higher then I wanted it to be. So we have to check it again. Loki, you know if it gets higher, I'm going to have to take you back to hospital."

Loki groans, turning his face away and pressing it against the couches cushions.

Leah sighs quietly.

"It'll only take a minute. Come on guy." She says more gently, and Loki finally concedes, letting her stick the thermometer in his mouth.

It does only take a minute, and to Loki's relief, and Leah's, his temperature is down a degree when she reads it out. She actually cracks a smile at him.

"See. Not so bad." She says.

"... I guess not." Loki mutters, sounding childish, he knows, but unable to help it.

"Here, now eat this." Leah goes on undeterred, handing him the bowl of soup.

Loki takes it, knowing better than to argue. The heated porcelain of the bowl feels nice against his palms besides, and he holds it close to his chest, letting the steam wash against his face.

"I just talked to Darcy." Leah says suddenly. Reluctantly, Loki pulls his face from the bowl to look up at her. "She's on her way over."

Loki blinks, confused for a moment.

"... To the shop?" He asks. "Shouldn't she already..."

Leah shakes her head.

"No. Over here. I told her she could come."

Loki feels a sudden swell of annoyance and, oddly, almost panic.

"Leah..." he starts, half starting up from the couch, not even sure what he's intending.

"She wants to see you Lok. She's worried about you." Leah starts, reaching out and pushing him back down.

"But what about the shop?" Loki starts to protest, sinking back down with little resistance, too tired and sore to really fight.

"She closed it up for the rest of the day. Business was slow anyway she said."

That news hardly does much to quell Loki's unhappiness, and he slumps down further, feeling abruptly dizzy, an unpleasant churning starting again in the pit of his stomach.

Leah obviously sees it, and she sits down next to him, putting an arm around his shoulders and pulling him against her side.

"Just calm down." She says gently. "It's okay."

Loki swallows, nodding. He knows he's being ridiculous anyway.

"Now eat your soup." Leah presses, standing back up. "Darcy'll be here in about twenty."

/

**AN: Thanks again to all my readers! I hope you continue to enjoy and leave me a review if you get the chance!**


	6. Chapter 6

“Hey girl!” Darcy greets, grinning widely as she steps forward, wrapping her arms around Leah in a tight hug. 

Leah stiffens in her hold, and Darcy only smiles wider. Her and Loki are alike in that way, acting uncomfortable with physical affection. But Darcy knows they secretly like it, confirmed when she feels Leah relax and hug her back after a moment.

“Hey.” She says, the two of them holding on for several seconds before finally separating. Darcy grins up at her.

“How's the kid?” She asks, sobering some.

Darcy wishes she could have been surprised when she'd heard what had happened, about Loki walking all the way to Leah's flat from his own when he'd already been sick. But she couldn't be. In the time that she'd known him, she'd seen Loki engage in what could at times only be called reckless behavior. He was almost stupidly brave sometimes, and frequently, worrying disregardful of himself.

Darcy doesn't think she'll ever be able to forget the time she and Loki had gone out to dinner, to celebrate her first month of employment at his shop. They'd been sitting at the bar, and there had been a guy there who'd kept hitting on her, to the point of being stalkerish and creepy, and Loki had eventually had enough, standing up and telling the loser to beat it.

The thing was, the dude must have been twice Loki's size, and half drunk on top of it, making him dangerously aggressive. Loki hadn't seemed to care. The guy could have broken him in half, but Loki had gotten right up in his face and told him to leave her alone. He'd been so unyielding, so seemingly unafraid, that the dude had actually been intimidated and backed down, actually apologizing to Loki and to her both before going.

That with Loki having only known her for a month, and he'd done that for her, put himself in direct harm's way for her.

She'd never met anybody like him, and she absolutely, completely loved him. He was her best friend, and ever since that day, she'd made it her own personal mission to look out for him. Between her and Leah, she thought they were doing a reasonably good job. But then there were instances like this, when Darcy found herself wishing Loki was better at taking care of himself.

God, she felt bad for him. She'd had a bad feeling before leaving back to the US, had wanted him to come with her to spend Christmas with her family. Had hated the thought of him being alone. Leah had told her she would try and get him to come spend the holidays with her and her mother, but of course, Loki had turned her down.

When she'd called him and found out he was back in contact with his older brother, she'd been overjoyed. She knew he had a shaky relationship with his family, but she'd always thought it was heartbreaking, the way he'd become estranged from them. Had secretly hoped he would reconcile with them someday.

Of course something that should have been good led to something bad like this.

“He's a little better.” Leah tells her now. “Though he's still pretty sick. He's in the living room just watching the tele and eating some lunch.”

“Cool.” Darcy answers. “And he's cool with me coming over?”

“Yeah.” Leah says. “He was a little worried about the shop, but I told him it's alright.”

“Yeah, I locked up and made sure everything was put away.” Darcy assures as Leah steps aside, letting her into the apartment and closing the door behind her.

“I'll take your coat and scarf.” Leah offers, and Darcy is happy to let her.

“It's fucking freezing outside.” She says as Leah takes her stuff and hangs it up by the door. 

“I know.” Leah replies.

“I can't believe Loki walked five miles or whatever it was in this.”

“I know.” Leah says again. “It was messed up. Come on, I'll show you to him.”

Darcy follows Leah to the living room, and quickly spots Loki slumped on the couch, looking like hell warmed over. He's paler than usual, his eyes, even from this distance, plainly glassy and unfocused as he stares listlessly at the television, his food sitting forgotten on a table beside the couch. 

“Darcy's here.” Leah announces bluntly, and slowly Loki looks up from the TV, staring at Leah a long moment before his eyes move over to Darcy. It seems to take him some seconds to recognize her, and Darcy feels her stomach twist unpleasantly at it.

“Darcy...” he finally starts, his voice low, almost a whisper, his words slightly slurred. “Hi.”

“Hey'a kiddo.” She says back, forcing herself to smile.

“I'm just cleaning up in the kitchen, so if you guys need me, just call.” Leah informs, before making her way from the room, leaving Darcy and Loki alone.

She makes her was over to the couch, plopping herself down next to him.

“So,” she starts, looking at him closely.

He looks like death warmed over, she thinks dismally, up close his eyes even more remote and skin ashy, any small amount of color his cheeks usually held completely washed out.

“How ya doin'?” She asks, knowing it's a dumb question, but not knowing what else to say.

“Shitty.” He croaks out honestly, voice rough as he looks. “How about you?”

She shrugs.

“Okay.” She answers. “Sucks not having you in the shop though. My antique tome knowledge only goes so far, as does my irreverent and witty charm.”

She'd been hoping to make him laugh, but Loki doesn't even crack a smile.

“Seriously though, I had one guy come in today asking about some old as balls edition of the Holy Bible, and I didn't have a fucking clue what he was talking about.”

Loki looks at her then, a worried expression lining his face.

“Did you write down what he was looking for?” He asks anxiously. “I could probably get it for him.”

“Well, obviously.” Darcy answers, feigning offense. “What do you take me for? I told him I'd talk to the owner and see what we could do, and that he should come back in a couple weeks. Anyway, I sold him some Bible we had in store in the meantime, which seemed to make him happy.”

Loki sags in visible relief, and Darcy finds she doesn't have the heart to tease him about it. It was hard enough breaking even for Loki, she knew that, and with him being unable to operate the shop for the moment, it just had to be making him even more anxious than usual.

“Hey, guess what!” She changes the subject, deciding business talk probably isn't the best option right now.

Loki sinks back against the couch cushions, his eyelids drooping closed.

“What?” He asks weakly.

“I got you a Christmas present!” She announces excitedly, already grabbing up her purse and rooting through it.

Loki's eyes open at that, staring at her dazedly.

“... You did?” 

“Totally!” Darcy says. “Ah ha! Here you go.” She finds the little gift wrapped box, handing it to him.

Loki reaches back, his movements sluggish, his hand trembling slightly as he wraps his thin fingers round the box.

“Darcy, you didn't...”

“I didn't have to, I know. But I wanted to.”

She sees him swallow thickly, a ripple of pain crossing his face, probably from a sore throat, his eyes a little too bright.

“... I didn't get you anything.” He says so softly she almost doesn't hear. “I'm sorry, I should ha...”

Darcy waves him off.

“Pff. I'm already overloaded with prezzies from the family back home.”

She regrets saying it almost as quickly as the words slip past her lips, remembering Loki's situation with his own family. But if he notices, he doesn't show it at all, only thanking her.

“Well open it.” She urges when he just keeps staring at the box, like he doesn't know what to do with it.

At last he starts to, almost comically trying to undo the wrapping paper without tearing it, before at last Darcy herself grows frustrated, telling him to forget the paper, that her feelings weren't going to be hurt by him messing up her pristine wrap job.

He gives her a baleful stare a moment, before huffing and just tearing the paper free, lifting the lid off the box.

Darcy holds her breath, nervous suddenly that he won't like it. She knows it isn't much, but she'd seen it when she'd been out shopping with her mother, and she'd thought instantly of him.

Loki stares at the cat shaped pin a long moment, before suddenly he reaches into the box, pulling the piece of jewelery from it.

“Darcy, it's beautiful.” He says, staring more closely at it.

“Do you like it really?” She asks, still unsure.

“I love it.” He tells her, still studying it closely. “Darcy, it's really beautiful. What's... what's it made of?”

“18 karat white gold.” She tells him, smiling. “The little eyes are just glass, I think. But the setting is real gold.”

Finally he pulls his eyes from the pin, looking at her, and for the first time since arriving, she sees a genuine smile break across his face, though there's something almost pained in the expression, his eyes over bright.

“Thank you Darcy.” He tells her, his voice reduced to almost nothing. “I love it. Thank you so much. I'll... I'll wear it all the time.”

“I'm happy you like it.” She tells him sincerely, reaching out then and pulling him into a hug.

To her surprise, he doesn't stiffen or pull back, like he always has a tendency to do whenever she abruptly initiates contact like this. Maybe he just feels too tired to fight it this time, though Darcy likes to think it's because he doesn't actually hate being hugged as much as he pretends to.

“What did I tell you two about hankypanky in my apartment?” Leah's voice suddenly cuts through the air.

Darcy pulls back, laughing, even as she sees Loki's whole face light up bright red to the tips of his ears, his eyes skating away.

“I was just giving Loki his Christmas present.” Darcy explains, feeling kind of bad for him. “I got you one too. Think fast!”

She pulls Leah's present from her bag, chucking it through the air to the older woman.

Leah catches it easily, not even looking flustered, and not for the first time Darcy wonders how anyone could actually be that cool.

“Thanks Darcy. I actually got you and Loki something too, though it isn't very exciting. You know me, I'm bad at this whole gift exchange thing.”

“Ohhhh, whatdidya get us?!” Darcy starts, excited, even as Loki groans, covering his face in his hands.

“I'm such an asshole.” He says weakly, voice muffled.

“Don't beat yourself up Lok. You've got enough on your plate without having to worry about gift shopping.” Leah tells him, coming over and sitting on his other side. “Besides, my present sucks. Just a couple of season passes to the zoo.” 

“I fucking love the zoo!” Darcy practically squeals, her voice a little too loud she realizes as Loki flinches back from it. “Sorry.” She apologizes. “Got excited. But seriously, I love the zoo. Loki, you love animals. I know you do.”

He nods vaguely.

“Thank you Leah.” He starts. “It's a wonderful present. See what Darcy got for me?” He hands her the box with the cat pin.

“Wow,” Leah says, looking closely at it. “this is really nice.”

Loki nods, his eyes drooping closed again.

“Yeah,” he says, sounding faint.

Leah looks at him carefully, concern plain on her face.

“How do you feel?” She asks, reaching out and pressing her hand against his forehead.

Long seconds pass without Loki answering, or even moving.

“Loki.” Leah presses.

“M'lright.” He finally answers, sounding fainter still.

Leah shakes her head, seeming unconvinced, and Darcy doesn't blame her, an uncomfortable tightness forming in her chest as she looks at Loki. He seems suddenly to have grown even paler, if that was at all possible, his chest rising and falling in a slow, shallow pattern.

“Time to take your temperature again Lok.” Leah says. Another, long moment passes before Loki gives a barely visible nod, eyes still closed.

“Is he alright?” Darcy asks, looking up at Leah as she stands from the couch, moving across the room, presumably to fetch the thermometer. 

“I think so.” Leah answers, coming back a moment later. “He's been having these spells the last few days. He's just exhausted.”

Darcy nods, looking back to Loki, reaching out and taking hold of his limp hand in hers. His skin is hot to the touch.

“God, poor thing.” She says absently as Leah sits down beside him again.

“Loki,” she starts, snaking her arm behind his shoulders and helping him to sit up straighter. “come on honey, it'll just take a minute.”

His eyes come partially open, glazed and confused looking.

“Hmm?” 

“I've got to take your temperature again Loki. It'll just take a moment. Come on, open up.”

He's completely out of it, Darcy thinks, alarmed at how quickly it came on, when he's seemed pretty cognizant before.

His mouth falls open after a few seconds, and Leah gently pushes the thermometer past his lips and under his tongue.

“Just hold that there as best as you can.” She tells him softly.

“Is there anything I can do?” Darcy asks, feeling suddenly stupid in her uselessness.

“Can you maybe go get some fresh wash cloths, soaked in cold water? You know where I keep the linens.” 

Darcy practically leaps at the chance, going without hesitation.

She returns quickly, several soaked clothes in her hands, and finds Leah with a concerned look on her face as she examines the thermometer.

“What's up?” She asks, her eyes moving to Loki, seeing him slumped again against the couch cushions, eyes closed. There's a noticeable sheen to his skin now.

Leah shakes her head.

“Not much. His temp is just a little spiky right now.”

Darcy bites her lip, worried.

“What should we do?” She asks, coming closer, reaching out and pressing her palm against Loki's forehead, barely holding in a hiss as she feels how hot it is.

“Well if it gets too much worse, I'm gonna call his doctor. Right now I think we should get him to the bedroom, get him out of his clothes. I want to try and get his temp down a little.”

“Right.” Darcy nods.

Getting Loki to the bedroom isn't as easy as it should be. He's nearly limp with his lack of strength as they try to get him to stand, each of them taking him underneath one of his arms, having to support him almost fully as they stumble and struggle across the apartment.

Eventually they make it, getting Loki onto the bed. Darcy helps keep him upright as Leah goes about getting him undressed.

“... Wh-where are we?” Loki slurs, his eyes coming half open, gaze unfocused and confused.

“We're in Leah's bedroom sweetheart.” Darcy answers, rubbing his back as Leah works on pulling his pants free. “We're getting your clothes off so we can cool your temperature down some.”

Loki blinks, saying nothing for long seconds.

“I'm really hot.” He finally says. “Am I really hot?”

Stupidly, Darcy thinks she would normally make a joke here, but really, the situation isn't even remotely funny.

“Just relax Loki. You're okay.” She says, her throat feeling uncomfortably tight.

“Help me get his shirt off?” Leah asks, folding his pants and lying them on the dresser beside the bed.

Darcy nods, guiding Loki to lift up his arms as Leah pulls his sweater up from the hem, taking his t-shirt up with it and pulling the two garments off over his head.

Darcy feels his stomach drop.

He's so skinny, his skin glistening with sweat and ash pale.

“Darcy, can you go fetch the wash clothes again?” Leah asks, bending and lifting Loki's legs up onto the mattress before gently coaxing him to lye back against the pillows.

“Yeah.” Darcy answers, slipping quickly back out to the living room, grabbing up the clothes and heading back.

“Here.” She says, handing the wash clothes over to Leah, who mumbles a thank you, lying one across Loki's forehead, taking the other two and balling them up, sticking them into the pits of his arms.

Loki's eyes keep closing and opening, his face lined in exhaustion.

“... M'sorry.” He mutters, almost too softly to hear. “Sorry.”

For a moment, Darcy sees Leah's face crumple with visible pain, turning her head from Loki a moment, before forcing herself to look back, laying a hand on his shoulder gently.

“You didn't do anything wrong Lok.” She says quietly.

It's the most emotion Darcy thinks she's ever seen on the older woman, and it strikes her suddenly just how much Leah cares about Loki.

She'd known before, in a vague sort of way. Initially, she'd thought the two of them had an odd relationship, almost sarcastic, though obviously familiar. Leah could sometimes be outright mean to Loki. At least, that's how it had appeared to Darcy. From cold to sometimes outright, forcefully rejecting. But Loki always took everything she said in stride, would even laugh at some of her more biting comments, taking the harsh words in a way he didn't seem to take from anyone else.

Loki was sensitive, could grow easily upset, had often grown upset at customer's even, and that would always either take the form of biting sarcasm towards them, which inevitably drove them away; you didn't want Loki mad at you, he had a tongue sharp as a razor, or he would go into the back of the shop and fume for a long time, which almost always led to him outright crying. 

And so Darcy didn't really get his relationship with Leah, or why it worked the way it did. Obviously, Loki had a thing for her, though whether it was reciprocated, Darcy really couldn't say. She had supposed that might have something to do with it, why he never seemed upset by her standoffish, even unkind attitude.

Now Darcy realizes how wrong she had actually been.

Loki didn't get upset because he knew Leah didn't mean it. Not at all. That, in fact, she cared for him deeply, even loved him. Somehow he knew that, when to any outside observer, it would almost seem like Leah couldn't stand him. 

But here was proof of the opposite. When it mattered, when it really mattered, Leah was the one to be there for him, to take care of him when no one else would or could.

Suddenly Darcy feels slightly out of place. 

Of course she cares for Loki. She cares for him immensely, considers him one of her very best friends, even though she's only known him a little over a year. But that was the thing. She'd only known him a short while, and Leah, she knew, had known Loki since he was literally a little boy. 

“Is there anything else I can do?” She asks quietly, watching from off to the side.

“Maybe just sit with him a while? Keep recooling the clothes and reapplying them.” Leah says after a long moment, dabbing the wet wash cloth from his forehead around his face and neck and chest. “I think I want to pop down to the market across the street to pick up some more aspirin and a few other things.”

“Sure. Of course.” Darcy nods.

“And call me if he starts looking worse at all. I should just be about twenty five, thirty minutes.”

“Right.” Darcy says, moving closer to the bed. 

“Should I just try and let him sleep?” She goes on, looking at him. It already looked to her like he was asleep now.

“Yeah.” Leah says, handing her the wash cloth. “You can talk to him if you want. It... it helps him, just to hear someone sometimes.”

There was that emotion again, more than Darcy was at all used to hearing in Leah's voice.

She nods again, stepping aside to let Leah pass before taking her place at Loki's side, resuming her work.

Leah calls again from the living room that she'll be back, and then it's just her and Loki.

He continues to lay there with his eyes closed, his breathing at least even and steady as Darcy continues to dab at his face and neck.

“Poor kid.” She thinks, frowning down at him. 

“... Darcy.” She hears him say suddenly, his voice faint and barely audible.

She's surprised, having been sure he was asleep.

“Yeah kiddo?” She asks, still dabbing at his forehead.

“... M'sorry.” He mutters softly, eyes still closed. 

Darcy's eyes sting, her head shaking.

“It's okay Loki.” She forces herself to say, reaching out, coming her hand through his damp hair.

His eyes come open finally, dulled with glaze and exhaustion as he stares blankly up at the ceiling.

“... Did Leah l-leave?” He asks weakly.

“Yeah, just for a little while.” Darcy answers. “She went to get some more aspirin and stuff.”

Loki's hand comes up, wavering a moment aimlessly, before it finds her own still resting on the crown of his head, grasping it weakly.

“You don't have to stay.” He says, voice a cracked whisper. 

“Well,” Darcy starts, squeezing his hand back. “besides the fact that Leah would literally murder me if I left you like this, I also don't mind staying with you at all. I think you know that Loki.”

His eyes close again, and she sees him swallow thickly. He nods a moment later.

“You want me to get you anything?” Darcy asks. “More pillows or something?”

Loki shakes his head minutely.

Silence falls between them for a long moment then, and again Darcy thinks maybe he's fallen asleep.

“Tell me about your Christmas.” He says then, voice still muted.

Darcy smiles down at him, remembering what Leah had said about it helping him to hear another person, just knowing they're there with him.

“You sure?” She asks. “It's libel to be just me bitching and moaning, since my family is, like, the definition of holiday stress.”

He swallows again, giving a weak nod.

“I want to hear.” He says faintly.

And so Darcy talks, trying to make it funny, trying to make Loki laugh. She talks until, at last, he really does fall asleep, just as she hears Leah come back into the apartment.


End file.
